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A MTIOX'S SOEEOW. 



A SERMOX 



PSIACHED 0\ TBI SABBATH AFTER THE ASSASSOATM OF 



PEESIDEXT LIXCOLX. 



^u the (f^cntul il'omufiiatioual (TliuriU. i^roridrnrf. 



APEIL 15. 1865. 



BT THE PASTOB, 

Rev. LEOXAED SWAIX 



A NATION'S SORROW. 



A SERMON 



PREACHED ON THE SABBATH AFTER THE ASSASSINATION OF 



PRESIDENT LINCOLN, 



gtt titc i^mtml (Kottijttptiatjal mnm\x, ^vmtlmt, 



APRIL 15, 1865. 



BY THE PASTOR, 

Rev. LEOJS^ARD SWAI]^. 




EI 4-5-] 
.8 



SERMON. 



LAMENTATIONS, 1 : U.—Be/wld, and see if there be any sorrmv like 

unto my sorrow. 



The thunderbolt has fallen. Every home in the land is desolate ; 
and the tolling bells and the wailing cannon are the audible break- 
ing of a nation's heart under the pressure of this great and over- 
whelming sorrow. 

We had passed thi-ough all the extremes of joy and grief during 
these last four years, until we seemed to ourselves to have ex- 
hausted the whole range of feeling, and to have nothing left out 
of which to form a new sensation. We had tasted defeat : we had 
tasted victory. We had borne the long agony of hope and fear, 
until hope had triumphed, and fear and doubt had given place to 
certainty. Success upon success had crowned our arms. The 
march of Sherman, the capture of Richmond, the surrender of 
Lee's army, had carried us to the very summit of the slope. Last 
Monday morning the nation was in a delirium of joy over what it 
regarded as the virtual end of the war. The contest was over ; 
peace was at hand ; and we felt and said to one another, as the 
day was going by, that if we lived a hundred years, we could 
never again see a day of such impression. Whatever could take 
place after that, the capture of Johnston's army, the actual cessa- 
tion of the war, the submission of the South, and the formal re- 
establishment of the national authority over the whole land, all 

this and all beside was mere matter of course, and could wake no 
emotion, when it came, comparable to the grand sensation which 
was past or passing. We must now return to the regions of 
common-place, and address ourselves to the mere details of that 



difficult, though glorious work, which our own successes had 
brought upon us. 

But God had something more. There was another deep which 
had not been sounded. The pendulum must swing again from 
side to side of the mighty arch. Yesterday morning five million 
families waked from their slumbers to find themselves orphaned. 
On the preceding night the assassin's hand had laid President 
Lincoln in death, with the Secretary of State, as was feared, mor- 
tally wounded by his side. The nation was paralyzed with horror. 
Men read the news on the street, and sat down fainting on the 
curbstone. All faces were pale, and all hands clasped in agony. 
One wail of astonishment and anguish broke from the nation's 
lips, and then it fell upon the earth stupefied and speechless. 

Never was there such a national sorrow since the world began : 
such a plunge, from such a height of joy, to such a depth of grief, 
with so sudden a movement, and by such a combination of appalling 
circumstances. 

No tragedy which was ever conceived by the genius of man 
is equal in grandeur and awfulness to that which ha& just 
now been enacted l)efore our eyes. The President of a. great 
nation, appointed of God and beloved of man, raised up to do 
a work of deliverance unequaled in history, who had carried 
the country through a four years' war against rebellion and slavery 
striking at its life, who had subdued the one and destroyed the 
other by a combination of wisdom, firmness and goodness which 
had drawn upon him the admiration of a world, who had survived 
all the perils of his first term of service and was entering upon 
the second with every prospect of finishing in glory what he had 
began in doubt and in fear ; he, when all danger seemed past; 
when the war was virtually ended and the enemy virtually sub- 
dued, when he was stretching the olive branch to the foe and 
preparing to meet him with a generous clemency which took that 
very foe by surprise ; he, there in his own capital, with peace in 
his heart and the top-stone of liberty in his hands, just ready to 
be laid upon the finished edifice ; he, there, smitten basely down by 
the very hand which he was grasping in reconciliation and new 
brotherhood, and so laid himself, the last and most illustrious 
sacrifice, upon the altar of freedom, dying by the hand of slavery 



in order that liberty might live by his blood and grow green and 
strong forever over his grave ; — is there anything in history, is there 
anything in the whole domain of poetry itself so tragic, so sad, or 
so suljlime ? I know but one thing that surpasses it in all the 
annals of time, and that is the death of Him whose blood shed on 
Calvary by the hands of His enemies, purchased the salvation of 
the world. 

That event of Calvary darkened the sun in heaven, shook the 
earth with horror, and covered the world with gloom. It was the 
assassination of the Son of God. Yet out of that horror of death 
has come the blessing of eternal life. It is the victory ol)tained 
for us and the world over that death, and by that death, on the 
morning of the Resurrection, that this Christian Sabbath itself 
was meant to commemorate. Let us accept the omen, and while, 
as a nation, we weep and clasp our hands in agony beneath the 
overwhelming horror that now darkens the earth and the sky, let 
us remember that even this event, like that of Calvary, is enclosed 
and included in the plan of God, and that out of this terrible 
culmination of the wrath of man God may yet bring the material 
of his praise. 

It is no time as yet to trace all, or even any, of the possible 
results which God's wisdom and goodness may bring to us, as a 
people, out of this appalling crime which has been committed 
against the life of the nation. There are only one or two of these 
results of good which can be alluded to this morning. 

1. This horrible deed of assassination is the deed and crime 
of slavery. The individual perpetrator is nothing. The nation 
scarcely cares to ask who he is, or what he is. He is the mere in- 
strument, the hand which held the pistol, the dagger, and the 
bludgeon. The arm, the body, the life, which nerved and directed 
that hand and struck with it at the nation's heart, was slavery itself. 

It needed this finishing act to complete its work, to make a 
perfect manifestation of its spirit, and to show that there is 
absolutely nothing this side of hell too horrible for it to propose 
or execute in the accomplishment of its selfish purposes. It 
has rent the Union ; it has raised the standard of rebellion ; it 
has slain half a million of our young men; it has starved and 
murdered sixty thousand of our soldiers in its prisons ; and now, 
2 



when it can do no more by honorable warfare, when it is beaten 
in the field, its territory seized, its cities captured, its armies con- 
quered and surrendered, and itself under bonds of submission and 
peace, it arms its hand with the assassin's dagger, and when its 
victim's back is turned it strikes at that revered and sacred life 
which represents the life of the nation itself, and whose taking 
away brings greater peril to the nation than any other possible 
calamity. Nay, the plot went further. The blow that struck the 
President was meant to sweep down the whole Cabinet, so that 
the guiding brain and hand being removed, the government might 
be dissolved, universal anarcliy and confusion ensue, and the nation 
thus fall to pieces and perisli in the very act and moment of its 
triumph, Li striking at the life of the President, therefore, it was 
nothing less than the nation itself which slavery undertook to 
assassinate. 

It needed this, and it needed but this, to show the infernal spirit 
of slavery, and to rouse against it such a sentiment of hatred and 
such a purpose of extermination as no language will licncefortli be 
able to express, and no bounds hereafter will ever he able to re- 
strain. When the people of this nation meet together to take up 
the bloody corpse of President Lincoln and lay it in the grave 
beneath the shadow of the Capitol, when the earth is filled in and 
the green turf is smoothed and rounded upon it, they will clasp 
mutual hands over that green grave in such a covenant, and lift 
them in such an oath, as the winds have never heard and the sun 
has never seen ; a covenant and an oath that slavery shall die the 
death, without pardon and without truce, and with not a single 
hair's breadth of compromise, concession or conciliation. It shall 
die the death which it prepared for him ; it shall be buried in his 
grave ; and its epitaph for all coming time shall be written upon 
his tombstone. 

2. Another obvious effect of this di-eadful crime will be to pre- 
pare the mind of tlie nation for the work of justice and judgment 
which is yet to be done upon the leaders and instigators of this 
rebellion. I do not speak of revenge, that spirit of wild and 
fm^ous retaliation which is sometimes waked by such provocation, 
and which, rushing forth madly and blindly, scatters destruction 
and death upon every living thing within its reach. That is not 



needed ; that is not a duty ; that is not consistent with the teach- 
ings of God's word and the spirit of Christianity. I speak of the 
maintenance of law. I speak of the claims of public justice, 
which is but another name for public benevolence and a regard 
for the public safety. I speak of judicial trial to be held, of 
judicial sentence to be pronounced, and of judicial penalty to be 
executed, as by law provided in the case of those who have been 
guilty of treason against the government of the United States. 

We were beginning to drift away from that great principle and 
centre of safety before this calamity overtook us. There was an 
alarming tone in some of our public journals, and in some of our 
public addresses, which indicated that we might be going to shrink, 
as a nation, from the great final duty to which we had been brought 
by the victorious termination of our conflict. We had overpowered 
our enemy, and now we were to use magnanimity and mercy, and 
waiving all further retribution, we were to leave him to be punished 
by his own reflections, while we, on our part, hastened to welcome 
him back to the family cu'cle whose peace he had broken, and 
whose very existence, for four years of mortal conflict, he had used 
his most desperate efforts to annihilate. We have overpowered 
our enemy ; we have shown ourselves stronger than he ; now let 
us show that we can afibrd to be generous ; do not let us exact 
hard terms from him in his surrender ; let us give him some gentle 
token of our disapprobation, and then, forgiving and forgetting 
what is past, shake hands in reconciliation and receive him once 
more to our fellowship. 

All this is brought to an end at once and forever by the dreadful 
event which hangs all the sanctuaries of God in mourning to-day. 
The dagger of the assassin has waked us out of that dream, and 
bidden us 

" Sleep no more" — 
" Macbeth doth murder sleep." 

It was, perhaps, while he was under the first approaches of that 
fatal slumber that the President himself was struck to death. He did 
not see the assassin's hand that was lifted over him. The hand 
descended, and he sleeps the sleep of death, but the nation sm-vivcs 
and escapes to profit by the lesson. The blow that closed his 
eyes in eternal slumber has opened ours to that " eternal vigilance ' ' 
which is the price of liberty and of safety. Now that our eyes 



8 



are opened by this appalling event, we begin to realize for the 
first time that we have been asleep, and we shudder to see into 
the midst of what fatal perils these slumbers of a mistaken 
generosity were leading us. 

It may be that nothing short of the startling and awful calamity 
which has come upon us could have thoroughly roused us out of 
that fatal slumber. And that has thoroughly roused us. We shall 
hear no more talk of pardoning the leaders of this rebellion. 
There will be one spectacle which will stop all that kind of 
argument and appeal : look there at that bloody scene in the 
Capital, and see what these men did at the very moment when 
they were pleading for gentle terms, when they were promising 
repentance, and when we were beginning to take their hand in the 
very spirit of this un watchful generosity. When we reach forth 
our right hand they seize it with their right hand, not that they 
may return its pressure, but that they may hold it from defending 
itself, while with their left hand they may drive the dagger more 
securely into our bosom. 

We have seen the spectacle, we have waked from sleep, we have 
learned the lesson, and we shall never forget it. From this day 
forward there will be but one sentiment and one voice. This 
rebellion has been overpowered : the criminal has been seized and 
brought into court by the police with infinite cost of life, blood, 
and treasure. But the work of justice and the duty of government 
is not done ; it is only begun when the criminal is apprehended 
and brought to the bar. Now let him be tried ; let his guilt be 
proved by regular judicial process; then let his sentence be 
solemnly pronounced ; then let it be faithfully executed upon him. 
This rebellion has been seized, overpowered, and brought into 
court. Now let it receive judgment at the hands of the nation. 
Let the leaders of the rebellion, or a suitable number of them, be 
tried, sentenced and executed for treason, as by the laws of the 
land ordered and provided ; then justice, having had its place, and 
the majesty of the law having been honored, mercy may have its 
exercise, and the people of the rebellious States be forgiven. 

Nothing short of this measure of justice at least will henceforth 
satisfy this nation. The cry has already begun to shape itself out 
of our inarticulate wailings, and it will go on waxing louder and 



9 

louder until it becomes as unmistakeable and awful as the very 
thunder of the heavens. And what will make it still more awful 
and irresistible is, that, like the thunder of the heavens, it will be 
the voice of God. 

a.,. .With equal strength and clearness will the voice of a people, 
now waked out of its sleep, pronounce upon the spirit of those 
who would speak of the leaders of this rebellion, civil or military, 
or of any of them, in any other terms than those of the deepest 
abhorrence and execration. It will say, let us hear no more 
praising of the statesmanship of Davis, or the generalship of Lee, 
and declaring that we shall yet live as a people to be proud of their 
skill, their prowess, their military genius, or of anything whatever 
that pertains to them. He is a corrupter of youth, he is a poisoner 
of the public morals, he is a teacher of treason and rebellion to 
all Americans in all coming time, who couples the names of these 
men and their associates with anything that can appeal to American 
pride. Let them go to their own place in history, and stand side 
by side with Benedict Arnold, and with Judas Iscariot, from whose 
example nothing is to be drawn l)ut warning, and whose names 
are never to be used except as a synonym for all ignominy and 
reproach. " The name of the wicked shall rot." 

4. But greater than all, and better than all, and as the condition 
of all other effects that may be good, let us hope that this awful 
affliction will turn the nation to God. 

We were beginning again to forget Him, because we had 
attained, as we thought, to safety and success. The prize was 
almost within our grasp ; we had but to put forth our hand and it 
was ours. The way looked straight and easy before us, and we, 
who in the night of our peril and our sorrow had cried unto the 
Lord for help, were now in the sudden brightness of our prosperity 
beginning to feel that henceforth we were strong and wise enough 
to take care of ourselves. , God saw it and it displeased Him, and 
He put forth His hand and smote us with this terrible blow in the 
very moment of our triumph, that He might lay the nation at His 
feet and teach us our dependence upon Him. 

And there we lie at His feet to-day, a whole nation stunned, 
amazed, and speechless in our grief; our President a murdered 
corpse in the Capitol ; our flag at half-mast, and the colors of death 
3 



10 

flying over it ; our banners, that so lately floated on the breeze, 
proud with the glory of a hundred victories, now drooped in the 
sanctuary and clinging in terror at God's altars. 

Yesterday we were filled with the thought of our own greatness. 
To-day Grod only is great, and all our strength, and confidence, 
and loftiness have sunk from their place and lie dashed in the (hist 
before Him. 

The Lord of hosts hath done it, to hide pride from man, to stain 
all human glory, and to bring into contempt all the honorable of 
the earth. He is a jealous God, and He will not give his glory to 
another, nor His praise to graven images. 

0, let us remember and heed the lesson. Other nations need 
God, but this nation never, never can do without Him. He has 
done too much for us. He has taken us too near to Himself, He 
has filled our history too full of His wonderful and awful deeds, to 
make it safe for us ever to forget Him. We are a consecrated 
and a covenanted people, and we must remember the covenant and 
the consecration. We belong to God. Whoever is President, the 
Lord Jehovah must be our King. We must choose Him. We 
must obey Him. We must swear allegiance to Him. If we would 
keep the Stars and Stripes streaming in the sky we must keep the 
banner of the Lord of Hosts riding the breezes far above them. 

We must honor Him if we would have Him honor us. We must 
reverence His will. We must enthrone His law. We must bring 
all our glory and honor into His kingdom. We have been baptized 
to this issue. It is the law of our history. It is the secret of our 
doom or of our destiny. We have been sealed as a nation to God 
and to Christ, Woe unto us if we forget the Lord and walk as do 
the secular kingdoms. The sorrow of to-day tells us that if ive 
provoke God's anger it will be no common thunder which shall 
smite us. If we fall by His hand it will be by a hotter bolt than 
ever split the strength of nations. If we live, it must be on the 
loftiest plane and to the highest destiny. If we die, it will be 
with a more dreadful doom than ever beaconed the path of history. 

This, this above all things else, is the lesson of our awful 
calamity. We shall read it the more clearly through our tears ; 
we shall take it the more deeply into our souls with the anguish 
which rends our very spirits asunder. 



11 

If we learn tlio lesson well, and ponder it deeply and wisely, 
our sorrow shall yet be our redemption. We shall see that one 
man has died for the people, in order that the whole nation might 
not perish. We shall confess the hand of God. We shall turn 
to Him who has smitten us. We shall repent of our sins against 
Him, and make a new and everlasting covenant with Him. Then 
shall He return unto us and bless us. He shall heal all our woes, 
and bring upon us the good which, through all these years, He has 
been secretly preparing for us. He will make us His people, and 
He Himself will be our God. The nations that hated us shall 
come bending to us for His sake, and all the ends of the earth 
shall say, Avhen they behold us, " Happy is the people that is in 
.such a case ; yea, happy is that people whose God is the Lord." 



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